


Dead, Metaphorically

by thebestoftimes



Category: The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: F/M, ansgt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebestoftimes/pseuds/thebestoftimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These stars we not as fine as the ones we’d tasted together in Amsterdam, and his glass rested on a tombstone and not in his hand. I sipped at mine, but Gus’s stayed full, as it always would and never should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead, Metaphorically

I went back to that spot two days later-to the spot on the hill under the tree that Gus picked out with his dad. My mom was fussing about letting me go out alone for a while, but she dropped me off outside the cemetery and promised not to linger.

I’d expected to feel something when I saw his stone, newly put in. I’d almost expected to feel Gus’s presence in the granite that bore his name. But it just reinforced the obvious, that he was gone and I was left behind. I needed to see his face again, and hear his laugh-as cliché as it all was. Sitting on the uneven ground next to the stone, I felt a lump gathering in my throat, and I forced myself to swallow.

Hesitantly, I pulled the bottle of champagne out of my bag. It had taken a lot of persuasion, but I’d convinced my mom to go out and buy it for me. I’d even brought nice glasses, not the Dixie cups we’d drunk out of in the park. I was determined to make this _special,_ for _us._ The champagne sparkled as I poured us each a glass, placing his on the stone.

These stars we not as fine as the ones we’d tasted together in Amsterdam, and his glass rested on a tombstone and not in his hand. I sipped at mine, but Gus’s stayed full, as it always would and never should.

The sun cautiously caressed my face as a breeze stirred, rustling his tree. If I closed my eyes and imagined the humming of my oxygen tank in a different place, far away, a place that smelled of petals and fine food, then I almost felt like I was back at Oranjee. I could picture it, remember it, and I felt like if I could remember it vividly and desperately enough then I would open my eyes and somehow be there again, Gus in front of me, before any of this had ever happened. “The beautiful couple is beautiful,” I whispered, repeating the words of the woman in the canal. The lump in my throat made my voice quiver.

How could we still be a couple, I found myself thinking, if there’s only one of us? My champagne glass was empty, and for the first time, I really understood why Van Houten lived the way he did. My first instinct was to refill my glass and drink the bottle empty, till I was comfortably numb. Like that song my mom likes. And then I could drink Augustus’s glass as well, because no one else ever would.

But if Gus were here, he’d want to drink his own glass, so I left it perched on the stone. Besides, the champagne wasn’t very high in alcohol and I’d probably just give myself a brutal headache and maybe puke.

Next to the glass, I placed the last thing I had in my bag for him: his very own copy of _An Imperial Affliction._ A glass of faulted stars he’d never drink, and a book he’d never read again. If he were here, he’d be reveling in the metaphorical significance of the moment.

But then, if he were here, I would be spending the moment very differently.


End file.
